More about Dr. Ryan Howell

Dr.
Ryan T. Howell is the director of the The Personality and Well-Being Lab which
focuses on understanding the factors, especially financial, that affect human
happiness and the benefits of happiness to individuals. For
example, in Howell's meta-analysis (2008) his findings show that for all
people, especially those living in the developing world, savings and wealth
accumulation behaviors matter most for long term happiness. Also, a primary question of the PWB lab is "Can money make us
happy if we spend it on the right purchases?" Our past work has shown that life experiences lead to longer-term satisfaction - likely because purchased
experiences provide memory capital. That is, we don't tend to
get bored of happy memories like we do with a material object. Yet, despite the need to understand how people can use their income to increase their well-being, surprisingly little is known about the processes by which one may resist urges to buy material items and invest in experiential consumption.

Academic History:

Doctor
of Philosophy, 2005, Social / Personality Psychology Division,
Psychology Department, University of California, Riverside. Dissertation
Title: Models of Happiness: The Role of Personality Traits and Daily Experience in Understanding Life Satisfaction (Chair: Daniel J. Ozer).